


Songbird

by HappinessIsBlau



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 05:50:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12647382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappinessIsBlau/pseuds/HappinessIsBlau
Summary: "I was used to cars and city noise and people talking, not silence and wind and gunfire. If I didn’t hear a human voice, even if it was my own, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do what I had to do."





	Songbird

Deacon noticed it first when the woman from Vault 111 was walking through Diamond City with her dog by her side and her hands in the pockets of the leather jacket that she wore on top of her vault suit. 

Her Pip-Boy radio was tuned to Diamond City Radio, but she was humming something else. He’d never heard a song like that, even though he’d been all over the former USA. 

He was curious enough to ask her, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to ruin his cover, after all -- but the woman from the Vault continued to be mysterious. Every time he saw her, she was singing or humming something. Maybe it was a nervous tic? Maybe she didn’t know she was doing it? 

When she’d finally joined the Railroad and they met up with Ricky, he followed in silence as she quietly sang to herself. It wasn’t unpleasant or anything, but he worried that she wouldn’t hear someone try to sneak up on them if she was focused on singing. She’d been in live-or-die situations before now and she’d made it out alright, but she had to know that any sort of sound would attract unwanted attention, right? 

_We’ve gone way too fast for way too long_   
_And we were never supposed to make it half this far_

She blew the heads off of three synths while he was unlocking a terminal, and he hadn’t even heard the tell clicking of their exposed artificial joints. Damn. 

_And I lived so much life, lived so much life_   
_I think that God is gonna have to kill me twice_

He’d normally congratulate her on her shots and say something witty about trying to stay on the right side of her wrath, but he didn’t want to interrupt her war song. He’d have to ask her what kind of training that they gave in vaults to make her such an efficient shot. 

_Kill me twice like my name was Nikki Sixx_   
_I woke up in my shoes again but somewhere you exist singing_

She paused to look over her shoulder, sending him a small smile when she saw that he was still behind her. She was right to be wary of a stranger; that was smart on her part. Every time they walked past a ruined flag or pre-war patriotic symbol, something behind her eyes changed. 

_Oops I, did it again, I forgot what I was losing my mind about_  
 _Oh, I only wrote this down to make you press rewind_  
 _And send a message that I was young and a menace_  
\--

When Deacon had handed her his recall code, she looked heartbroken on his behalf. She was still wet behind the ears even though she’d already turned Kellogg into viscera. Still, she’d been way too trusting -- anyone could walk over her like a doormat, he figured, so she’d needed someone to tell her a damn good lie.

He wasn’t sure when she’d read it but she didn’t speak to him for an entire day afterward. No singing, no nothing. Just silence. 

When he thought he’d broken her, he figured he’d say something. Like, that was definitely appropriate because they couldn’t work well together unless they talked, right? 

All it took was him getting grazed by a stray raider bullet to get her to talk to him again -- apparently, she cared if he lived or died, which was more than he could say for himself most days. The hurt on her face was replaced with concern and she even kissed over his wound when she’d finished wrapping it with gauze. 

_Try to stand the test_   
_But the night is crawling through my eyes_   
_I thought I was depressed_   
_But I think I just needed to cry_

_I'll do this my way_   
_Don't matter if I break_   
_I gotta be on my own_   
_Lost in this feeling_   
_Don't never need a reason_   
_I gotta be on my own_

Was that aimed at him? Was that _about_ him? He didn’t know and he didn’t want to ask. 

\--

The songs she sang were something special. Every day, it was a different tune while walking a well-worn path or while setting up her rifle out the window of a burned out building to snipe Super Mutants next door. He wondered if she’d take requests if he asked politely -- the song about jokers and thieves kept getting stuck in his head. 

Talking to people who were important to her, getting sent off on another nigh-impossible quest for something stupid (baseball cards? really?), or hearing (heavily mutated) cicadas would launch her into something new to fill the silence between their conversations. Even something as mundane as a number would have her humming a song for the rest of the afternoon. 

_She's a sunrise dressed like dusk_   
_Going out, she's getting into something_

She absentmindedly flicked through the notes she had on her Pip-Boy, sorting completed tasks. She’d shown him all of her “Quest Notes” as she’d called them; all the things she’d accomplished were neatly listed below things yet to be completed. It made sense -- some of her old world sensibility, he figured. 

_He's a moth drawn to a flame_   
_He's going in, he's going all or nothing_

Her eyes flickered to him and then to the ground in front of them. Instead of walking behind her, he now walked beside her. He gave her one of his patented Deacon Smiles that’d pry information from even the stingiest Upper Deck citizen in Diamond City, but she just looked toward the setting sun through the trees. 

_They look so pretty from afar_

 

\--

Deacon’s heart did somersaults when she belted a song in the bar that’d been set up in Sunshine Tidings. They were both drunk and holding onto each other as they wandered back to one of the empty houses that she’d unofficially claimed as her own at the settlement. It was packed from wall to wall with guns and ammo that she’d scavenged from nearby places. 

_It's not in the way that you hold me_   
_It's not in the way you say you care_   
_It's not in the way you've been treating my friends_   
_It's not in the way that you'll stay till the end_   
_It's not in the way you look or the things that you say that you do_

They curled up together on the mattress as they always did. She hummed more of her strange song as she pressed a soft, warm kiss against his lips and pulled away before he could even reciprocate. His face was hot and his fingers tingled and that was certainly due to the alcohol and not her kiss or the fact that she was using his shoulder as a pillow and had an arm thrown across his chest. It was probably just an old world tradition to kiss your friends. This wasn’t a big deal. 

\--

“Reassign you? What happened?” Desdemona looked as if her patience had run out, like, ten years ago. She ran her fingers through her hair and took a long drag from her cigarette as she waited for his answer. Deacon turned to look at his partner who was talking to Tom and Glory and laughing. She caught his glance and smiled, waving at him in the casual way that she always did. 

“Nothing happened. I just don’t think I’m reaching my full potential when I’m tied down babysitting a partner who doesn’t know what she’s doing--” “You expect me to believe that?” Her voice was so loud that everyone turned to look at them, surprised that their leader would snap at Deacon so abruptly. She stomped her cigarette out and lowered her voice. 

“What happened to all the praises you were singing about Bullseye a few months ago? Glory absolutely adores her and you know how difficult it is to gain her trust, not to mention her praise. Deacon, you’re good. You’re damn good. In fact, you’re the best and you know it, but you’re better than the best when you’re with her. I don’t know what your problem is, but you better fix it and fix it fast.” 

 

After his conversation with Desdemona, “Bullseye” wouldn’t look at him. She thought that he didn’t notice, but he could tell that she was pulling away from him. It was probably for the best. She was flicking through her Pip-Boy halfheartedly, mouthing words. Did she know that he could read her lips? 

_Now here you go again_   
_You say you want your freedom_   
_Well, who am I to keep you down?_

His heart dropped. She’d overheard his conversation with Desdemona, somehow. Maybe Des brought it up to her or something -- whatever the case, it didn’t matter. Her trust in him was fractured, again. He didn’t think that getting injured would fix it this time. 

_It's only right that you should_   
_Play the way you feel it_   
_But listen carefully to the sound_   
_Of your loneliness_   
_Like a heartbeat, drives you mad_   
_In the stillness of remembering what you had_   
_And what you lost…_

“Bullseye,” she glanced up at his use of her codename. It was the first time since they were at the church that she’d looked directly at him.

“Yeah, Deacon?” 

“I don’t know what you… thought you heard, but I… I just want the best for you. Please don’t doubt that.” 

She nodded and went back to scrolling through her notes. 

\-- 

“What’s your very favorite song?” 

She made a face and rolled her shoulder thoughtfully as she took another sip of her Nuka Cola, swishing it around in her mouth.

“I don’t really have one. It changes on what Travis hasn't played recently, I guess.” 

It was a Tuesday morning, a little brisk for March but not too bad. It wasn’t as if the seasons changed much around the Commonwealth anyway, but it was enough to warrant a jacket. Her blue suit was thermoregulated, she said. She didn’t need a jacket, she insisted. Would he please get over himself and wear her’s? It was too big anyhow and it wouldn’t be emasculating, she promised. He wondered if she knew that he didn’t care about gender roles, but he took it anyway. 

_All that I want_   
_Is to wake up fine_   
_Tell me that I’m alright_   
_That I ain’t gonna die_

She reached down and brushed her fingers against his, continuing to slowly sing the song so that Deacon could follow along. He pretended not to notice her fingers tapping his, so she took his hand in hers. When he didn’t pull away, she laced their fingers together. 

_All that I want_   
_Is a hole in the ground_   
_You can tell me when it’s alright_   
_For me to come out_

She squeezed his hand and swung their arms. Dogmeat wuffed from up ahead, his tail wagging as he waited for them to catch up with him. 

\-- 

She sat across from him, cross-legged on the floor with a bottle of bourbon between them and the radio playing in the background. Thunderstorms were no good, especially in the wasteland where they often turned into radiation storms. Finding someplace with a roof and four walls was difficult, but they weren’t too far from a Railroad safehouse when the first clouds had begun to form. 

Dogmeat snored quietly in the corner and they talked and sipped at the bottle between them. She laughed and the corners of her eyes crinkled and her too-white teeth gleamed off the light of their candle and she smelled like 200-year-old lotion that she lifted from her room in Vault 81 and the cigarettes that she always smoked when she was nervous. 

_Your beauty is beyond compare_   
_With flaming locks of auburn hair_   
_With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green_

_Your smile is like a breath of spring_   
_Your voice is soft like summer rain_   
_And I cannot compete with you, Jolene_

She reached between them for the bottle and her fingers found his. She closed her eyes and slid her hand up his arm and to his chin, sitting up on her knees and leaning over to press a bourbon-and-smoke flavored kiss against his lips. It surprised him just as much as the first time, but the way she kept pressing gentle, unrushed kisses on his mouth wasn’t exactly a point of seduction. 

She looked so… sad. Even though she had a few inches of height on him, she managed to rest her head against his shoulder when she pulled away. The familiar tingling returned to his fingertips and she just wrapped her arms around one of his and watched the lighting through one of the more severe cracks in the structure that they were in. 

_He talks about you in his sleep_   
_And there’s nothing I can do to keep from crying,_   
_When he calls your name, Jolene_

_And I can easily understand_   
_How you could easily take my man_   
_But you don’t know what he means to me, Jolene_

\-- 

Deacon had collected enough information to know that they were mostly love songs, but even though they regularly visited Goodneighbor he couldn’t get away from her for long enough to ask Daisy if she ever noticed that his charming friend was always staring into space and starring in her own one-person band, or if she was familiar with any of the things that the woman always seemed to be singing. 

_Do I look lonely?_   
_I see the shadows on my face_   
_People have told me_   
_I don't look the same_   
_Maybe I lost weight_   
_I'm playing hooky_   
_With the best of the best_   
_Pull my heart out my chest_   
_So that you can see it too_

Kent seemed flustered around her, but that wasn’t unusual whether she was singing or not. If he knew what or why she was singing, he didn’t say so. 

\--

_Love don't come so easily_   
_This doesn't have to end in tragedy_   
_I have you and you have me_   
_We're one in a million_   
_Why can't you see?_

_I'm waiting, waiting for nothing_   
_You're leaving, leaving me hang--_

“Why do you sing when it’s silent?” he finally asked her. She stopped in the middle of a word, looking up at him as if she was trying to decide whether to ignore him and continue or address the fact that he’d finally brought up her singing habit. 

“Do you want the truth or do you want, like, the Deacon truth?” She was teasing because the question had made her uncomfortable somehow. He didn’t know how to respond, but she continued so her question must have been rhetorical. 

“When I first climbed out of 111, I was so fucking scared,” she bent down to scratch Dogmeat behind the ears, “the whole fucking world had been blown away and I… I thought it was just me.” 

Deacon held his breath while she paused. His fingers unconsciously twitched towards his pack for a Stealth Boy in case this conversation got too real, but he stopped himself. 

“So until I finally started getting the hang of things, even with Dogmeat here, it was too damn quiet. I was used to cars and city noise and people talking, not silence and wind and gunfire. If I didn’t hear a human voice, even if it was my own, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do what I had to do.” 

She was looking at him now. Deacon shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny, even though he knew that she wasn’t staring at him to be critical. 

“It’s just a habit now, I guess. The songs are all things that my grandma liked, so they’re a little unorthodox. I hope my singing voice isn’t too bad since I was never really much of a singer before. Maybe we should start a band?” 

Back in joke territory was where he was most comfortable. 

“Hell yeah! What should we call ourselves?” 

\--

“What’s that one song,” Deacon started, and she glanced up from where she was making what she called As Close As You Can Get To Spaghetti, “that song that’s about stealing cars and losing wars and graffiti on graves?” 

She beamed at him and almost burnt her fingers on the rim of the pot, blowing on them around a mouthful of the sauce she was testing.

“It’s our theme song. It’s called, _‘Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back’_ and it’s my favorite song that my Grandma taught me.” 

He glanced at her fingers as she shook them to alleviate the sting and offered him a spoonful of sauce to test with her good hand. He took the spoon appreciatively and tested her sauce, giving her a thumbs up in approval and clicking the empty spoon against his teeth in thought. 

He handed it back and her fingers brushed his as she took it. 

“Will you teach it to me?”

**Author's Note:**

> So, this fic is kind of based in the assumption that "modern" (post-1950s) music did exist, but was suppressed or considered incredibly unpopular since the 1950s vibe rings to that scary nationalist-conservative attitude of the time. 
> 
> While the Sole Survivor isn't given a name here, she's based on my Sole Survivor, Sophia. Sophia's grandma was an anarcho-Marxist who was violently against government suppression/censorship, so...!! Hense her forbidden knowledge of lost music.
> 
> OH, and I couldn't find a good way to sneak in my favorite Deacon/F!SS song. It's "Out of My League" by Fitz and the Tantrums, by the way. An early draft had him learn it and sing it to her all romantically. 
> 
> Song list in order for those interested:   
> Young and Menace - Fall Out Boy  
> Gravel to Tempo - Hayley Kiyoko   
> (mentioned: All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix)  
> Daft Pretty Boys - Bad Suns  
> Hold the Line - Toto  
> Dreams - Fleetwood Mac  
> Hard Times - Paramore  
> Jolene - Dolly Parton  
> Death of a Bachelor - Panic! At The Disco  
> When Did Your Heart Go Missing? - Rooney  
> (mentioned: Save Yourself, I'll Hold Them Back - My Chemical Romance)


End file.
